


just don't fall in love with me, okay?

by llostt_in_ttranslationn



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, may or may not get a couple sequels, part 1 is set in 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:37:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llostt_in_ttranslationn/pseuds/llostt_in_ttranslationn
Summary: Kelley needs Emily's help with something. Emily is bad at saying no to Kelley. They both know this is a bad idea, but they're going to do it anyways.





	just don't fall in love with me, okay?

**Author's Note:**

> I swear one of these days I'll actually work on my my actual fics instead of writing one-shots, but that day is not today! Anyways, I was in the mood for some So'hara but no one has written any recently so I did it myself. Maybe you're in the mood for it too.

"Sonnett, I need your help with something."

Emily has a history with those words leading to something that will very much not end well. Mostly coming from Lindsey or Moe, but she isn't sure Kelley won't get her into trouble either.

"I'm sleeping, try again later."

Kelley doesn't seem to care, instead she throws herself down onto the bed next to Emily, who flops up with the way Kelley's weight causes the bed to shift.

At least it nudges her over a little so Kelley isn't pressed against her.

"Please, Sonnett," Kelley whines.

Emily keeps her eyes closed, repeating to herself in her head that if she can't see Kelley's pleading eyes and pout, she can't fall into her trap.

"I'm sleeping," Emily says again in a monotone voice.

She feels Kelley nudge her in the side. Once, twice. And then she lets out a dramatic sigh. "Well, if that's how you wanna be..."

Emily naively thinks for once Kelley is going to give up easily.

Instead, Kelley's weight shifts again, and then it's suddenly located on Emily's stomach instead of the bed. She feels one of Kelley's legs pressed on either side of her, and her eyes fling open just before Kelley's fingers begin assaulting the sides of her ribs.

"Gah!" Emily screeches, uncontrollable giggles beginning. "St-stop!"

"Not until you agree to help me," Kelley tells her, drifting one hand lower towards the side of Emily's stomach, where Kelley knows she's most ticklish.

Emily gasps for air, but none of it seems to reach her lungs and her laughing feels more like choking. "F-fi-fine!" She shouts.

Kelley's fingers instantly still, a smirk plastered to her face. She shifts back slightly, so her weight rests on Emily's hips instead of her stomach, hoping it helps the other woman regain her breath a little easier.

Emily is red and coughing, and Kelley feels a little bad.

"Sorry," She mumbles.

Emily doesn't acknowledge her, trying to focus on taking deep breaths instead of short gasps that she knows won't help her.

Kelley reaches out to place a hand on Emily's sternum, frowning at the flinch it ilicits, but not retracting her arm. She can feel Emily's heart pounding, and now she feels more than a little bad.

She remains silent as Emily's breathing slowly returns to normal.

If Emily wasn't half-dying because she could hardly breathe, she'd be half-dying because of the way Kelley's hand is gently resting on her chest, and as she regains her senses, her heart continues to beat fast at the feeling of Kelley's thighs braced against her hips.

"I'm sorry," Kelley repeats.

"S'okay," Emily rasps out.

It's not, not really, but Emily could never stay mad at Kelley, so there's no sense in trying.

Kelley shakes her head, not meeting Emily's eyes.

"Hey," Emily reaches up to gently grab onto Kelley's wrist from where her hand is still placed on her chest.

That draws Kelley's eyes up to meet Emily's gaze.

"What do you need me to do?" Emily questions.

Kelley stares at her for a moment before her brain snaps back to normal and she remembers her actual reason for hunting Emily down. "Nevermind, it's stupid."

Emily raises an eyebrow. "You don't get to come in here and almost kill me just to change your mind," She challenges.

Kelley flinches. She withdraws her hand, and swings her leg off Emily, hopping down so her feet are on the floor. "No."

Emily jumps up when Kelley turns to head towards the door, grabbing onto her wrist with a bit more force this time, swinging Kelley back around to face her. "Just say whatever it is, O'Hara."

Kelley sighs. "My parents have been hounding me for months about 'getting back out there' and I finally caved and told them that I'm seeing someone."

Emily's eyes widen, but she doesn't know what to say. She feels her heart drop a little at the information.

"So they decided they wanted to meet this person. And I managed to convince them that Christmas was not an option for that, but they're insistent that I invite my new 'love interest' to our New Year's Eve party," Kelley explains.

"Okay...?"

"The only problem is that I'm not actually seeing anybody," Kelley says. "I lied so they would get off my case, but I guess that wasn't as good of an idea as I thought."

Emily is confused, and she voices that to Kelley. "And this involves me, how?"

Kelley drops her gaze down to where Emily's hand still grips her wrist.

"Ineedyoutopretendtobemygirlfriend."

Emily blinks slowly, trying to comprehend the mumbled whisper Kelley just spewed.

"You- _what_?" Emily asks, certain she hadn't heard her right.

It almost sounded like- "I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend," Kelley repeats, much clearer this time.

"Me?" Emily questions. "Why me? I'm lame and I doubt your parents would approve of me."

Kelley rolls her eyes. "Shut up. You're not lame and I'm sure my parents wouldn't care if you were."

Emily shrugs. "Okay but still, why me? There must be a dozen girls that you could convince to help you."

She's proud of herself for keeping cool and not freaking out like a little preteen who's crush just asked them out.

"Well first of all, my parents haven't met you, so they won't know the differnce in behavior. Second, you live in Georgia, too, so it wouldn't be an inconveniencing amount of travel. And also, why _not_ you? You're like, exactly the type of girl I would have gone after in college."

Kelley doesn't tell her that she did that because liked the feeling it gave her to corrupt innocent girls who were supposedly straight. They always moaned the loudest, and Kelley didn't mind the sloppy way the attempted to reciprocate.

Emily stares at her with a very shocked (very cute) expression on her face.

Her brain is cloudy and moving a hundred miles an hour, and she has no idea how to respond. "I- I'm straight."

That is in no way what she intended to spit out, but the maybe-lie slips out as a defense mechanism, just like it always does when Emily is scared someone will interrogate her about things she doesn't have answers for.

Kelley shrugs, wanting to make a quip about how the college girls she liked to be with were too, but she isn't sure that would help this matter.

"I'm not asking you to make a porno with me, Sonnett. I just need you to smile at my parents and talk about football while you hold my hand."

Emily's eyes widen even more at Kelley's mention of what would entail them having sex, which she definitely has not thought about before.

(She has, vividly.)

"Em, please," Kelley says softly, giving her best pout.

Emily tingles at the combination of the nickname and the way Kelley's hazel eyes stare into her own.

"Okay," She hears herself say.

Kelley grins widely, throwing her arms around Emily's neck and tugging their bodies together.

After a moment, Emily remembers to wrap her arms around Kelley's waist to complete the hug.

She rests her forehead against Kelley's shoulder. _What the hell have I just done?_

Kelley gives her one last tight squeeze before pulling away. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Yeah," Emily breathes out.

Kelley is still grinning. "I'll text you about it."

Emily just nods.

She can't believe she agreed to pretend to date the woman she's had a crush on for months.

There's no way this is going to end well for her.

Kelley, for her part, rushes out of the room quickly, realizing that maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.

But she is notoriously good at dating teammates. Or rather, good at screwing teammates without screwing up team dynamics.

She did it as a young teenager during youth camps with Tobin, all wandering hands and curious eyes, both being brand new to the whole liking girls thing. And look where they are now, still bros, no awkwardness, just a mutual appreciation for the help coming to terms with how hot women are.

She did it again with Christen in college. It wasn't usually soft and timid, mostly occurring when one or both of them was at least a little tipsy. But they did go on little dates occasionally. It was casual. She definitely wasn't the only one Kelley was sleeping with at the time, but she'll admit she was probably her favourite. And now, they're still best friends, and their college trysts are just off-hand jokes that they share now.

Then there was Hope. Kelley was terrified when Pia told her that she was going to have to go from a striker to an outside back in order to stay in the squad. Hope took it upon herself to help Kelley settle in, and eventually thrive. Kelley took it upon herself to thank Hope in a less than professional manner. Hope's hot-and-cold responses to Kelley's advances always kept things interesting. It did help them build trust and chemistry on the field, thought it eventually fizzled ou off the fieldt. Kelley felt like she could always go to Hope for anything, even now.

And then there was Alex. Those three months living together after the Olympics in 2012 certainly were something. Alex was lonely and Kelley was there and somehow that ended up with them in bed together most nights. That was probably the closest Kelley ever came to fucking something up. But then the little bubble popped and everything went back to the way it was before. The memories still linger sometimes for Kelley, usually when she sees Alex with Servando. A mix of guilt and sadness, but never regret. Alex is still her best friend and nothing would ever change that.

This is probably different, though. Because Kelley and Emily won't be fucking around for a bit of fun. It'll all be fake, and maybe without feelings involved, things will crash and burn. Except, there are feelings involved, not that Kelley would ever even admit it to herself.

She won't allow herself to think of Emily as anything other than a kid from Georgia that she should mentor. Because Emily is barely twenty-two. She's way too fresh and new and innocent in the best of ways for Kelley. Kelley wouldn't want to be the one to full the light in Emily's eyes.

Because twenty-seven-year-old Kelley needs to be different than college Kelley who would fuck just about anyone who paid her any interest. College Kelley was the same age as Emily is now, Kelley always reminds herself. They are not compatible.

That doesn't do much to stop the warmth Kelley feels inside when she manages to coax out one of Emily's soft smiles, though. Which is why this probably isn't a good idea.

Also, Emily is straight.

Kelley isn't sure she completely believes that, because her gaydar is almost never wrong, but maybe it's just wishful thinking.

She really wishes her family hadn't been pushing her so hard to get over Ann. Erin insists it's because their relationship was over way before ir actually ended three months ago. Kelley will admit that she's not entirely wong about that. It's not that she wasn't devestated when she broke things off, but there's only so much she's allowed to feel, as the designated heartbreaker in this scenario.

She doesn't want to break Emily's heart. Not that she's ever going to have the chance. Emily is straight. She's just doing Kelley a favour. No feelings.

* * *

Now that Kelley knows who she's "dating", it's much easier to talk to her family about it.

Everything she says about Emily is true.

When her mom asks her what she likes most about Emily, and Kelley answers, she's honest. She loves making Emily laugh, and how much Emily makes her laugh.

When she tells Jerry that her favourite of Emily's features is a tie between her eyes, smile, and freckles, it's true. The cheesy "everything about her is amazing," line she delivers afterwards is, too.

When her dad questions their age gap, ("She's twenty-two? Kel, that's a bit young for you,") she tells him what she tells herself during the late nights when she lets herself believe they wouldn't be doomed from the start ("I'm twenty-seven-years-young, Pops!").

Erin is the hardest to convince, asking her why Emily is any different than Ann. ("She just... This feels different, Er. _She_  makes me feel different.") Kelley wishes that wasn't true, but it is.

By the time December 31st rolls around, Kelley is pretty sure she's talked Emily up so much that her family is going to see right through them when Emily doesn't act nearly as enamoured by Kelley as the other woman is with her.

She decides to drive the hour up north to pick Emily up from her childhood home, just for the extra time to prepare themselves.

Emily tosses her overnight bag into Kelley's back-seat, offering a bright grin as a greeting.

"Hey, Em," Kelley says softly. "Thanks, again."

Emily shrugs. "Free food and booze? Count me in! Anytime!"

Kelley smiles. "You're cute."

The way Emily blushes is even more cute, and Kelley files the image away mentally.

"So, how do we play this?" Emily asks after a few minutes of quiet. "Like, what have you told them?"

"Well, I haven't told them anything that's not true," Kelley says. "Like, how we met and became friends, I figured none of that needed to be changed."

Emily nods. "Okay."

"But basically, like I said, all you really have to do is smile and hold my hand and pretend that you can tolerate me," Kelley shrugs.

"How did we get together? Who made the first move? How long have we been a thing?" Emily prods.

"Uh, it just sorta happened. One day we were friends, the next we realized there was more to it. I made the first move, obviously. And um, late November. My birthday gift to you was a kiss," Kelley shoots her a wink.

Emily rolls her eyes. "Why does it get to be you who made the first move? Why not me? We both know you're a little bitch."

"Hey!" Kelley protests. "I kissed you on your birthday. That's the story."

Emily gasps dramatically. "But that's not true, Miss Kelley. That's a lie!"

"Next year," Kelley mumbles.

If Emily heard her, she doesn't acknowledge it.

(She did. She melts a little at the thought.)

"Okay, boss," Emily says.

Kelley turns up the radio, and begins singing along to a country song she should be ashamed to know.

Emily's heart flutters as she watches. A grin plays on her face.

Kelley glances over. "Well, you just gonna watch or are you gonna join in? I know you know the words!"

With a laugh, Emily belts out the chorus with Kelley.

They go on like that for several songs, and there is clearly a reason why they're soccer players and not singers, but it doesn't bother either of them that they suck.

After a little while, Kelley turns the radio down, just a little, now that it doesn't need to disguise their horrible singing.

They sit in a comfortable quiet.

Emily spends a good while trying to psych herself up for what she wants to do next.

She stares straight ahead out the windshield as she reaches out, covering Kelley's hand that rests on the center console lightly.

Kelley turns her head a little to look at Emily, but the other woman doesn't look back at her.

Kelley flips her hand, pressing her palm against Emily's, slotting her fingers between Emily's. She gives a reassuring squeeze.

After a little while, Emily speaks.

"I thought... that maybe it would be good to get comfortable holding each other's hands. So it looks natural in front of your family," She explains quietly.

"And here I was thinking you just wanted to hold my hand," Kelley clicks her tongue. "Darn."

Emily smiles at her sarcasm. "Shut up."

Kelley desperately wants to respond with 'make me,' but she knows that's not a good idea, so she just tightens her grip on Emily's hand, until she needs to shift gears.

It doesn't take much longer until Kelley is pulling into the driveway of her parents' house.

"You ready for this?" Kelley asks.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Emily takes a deep breath.

Kelley pops out of the car and jogs around the front, opening Emily's door for her with a goofy grin. "M'lady."

Emily laughs, accepting Kelley's outstetched hand to pull her out of the car. "Cute. Your parents are watching from the window."

Kelley keeps her smile plastered on. "I knew they would be. Can I kiss your cheek?"

Emily hopes she isn't blushing. "Go for it."

She tugs Kelley closer, squeezing her in a hug.

Kelley presses a sloppy kiss on Emily's cheek with a laugh, and then goes back for a second one, gentler, and a little closer to Emily's mouth than probably necessary.

She releases her grip on Emily slowly, searching the other woman's eyes to see if she crossed a line, but not finding any disgust or horror, just a little dazed grin.

Kelley opens the back door and reaches in to grab Emily's bag.

"Okay, Em. This is it," Kelley says, slipping her hand into Emily's and tugging her up the pathway to the front door.

As she expected, her mom swings the door open before they even reach the front steps.

"Hi sweetie. I'm Karen!" She pulls Emily away from Kelley to hug the blonde.

"Mom," Kelley grumbles. "You'll scare her away."

"Nonsense," Karen brushes off.

Kelley rolls her eyes. "Mom, this is Emily. Em, this is my mom."

"And I'm Dan," He pokes his head into the entryway, stepping up next to his wife and offering Emily a handshake.

"Hello, Mr. O'Hara. I'm Emily," She gives him a firm handshake, just like her own father had taught her.

"Oh, don't be silly," Karen says. "Call us by our names. You'll make us feel old."

Emily just nods, a little overwhelmed.

"Mom," Kelley warns again. "I'm gonna show Em upstairs so I can put her bag down."

"Okay, dear," Karen agrees.

Kelley gives Emily a tug towards the stairs. "I'm sorry about them," She says quietly.

"It's okay, they're nice," Emily tells her. "I grew up here too, Kel. I'm used to over-friendly Southern hospitality."

Kelley leads her down the hall to her childhood bedroom. "Sorry, you're gonna have to share a room with me. Don't wanna be suspicious."

Emily's heartrate quickens at the thought of sharing a bed with Kelley. "Your parents allow that?"

Kelley laughs, pushing the door open. "Sonnett, I'm twenty-seven, not seventeen!"

Emily blushes.

Kelley tosses the bag into her bed. "Relax. It's barely different from being roommates at camp. Except, y'know, closer."

Emily is glad that Kelley at least doesn't have a twin bed. That might have been a little to close to be to the shorter woman. Surely she'd be able to hear the way Emily's heart pounded if they were that close.

"Okay," Kelley says, reaching out to grab one of Emily's hands in each of her own. "So, there's gonna be a bunch of people over tonight, but we only have to convince my parents and siblings. It should be easy."

"Uh, yeah, okay," Emily tries to focus on anything other than how soft Kelley's hands are.

"You okay, Sonnett?" Kelley raises an eyebrow.

"Yep!"

Kelley doesn't really believe her, but she lets it go, because clearly whatever it is, Emily doesn't want to share it with her.

"I'm most worried about Erin," Kelley admits. "She's always been able to read me like a book. So just- I'm sorry I'm advance if I'm extra clingy when she's around."

"Okay," Emily says, her pulse racing just at the thought of Kelley being so close to her.

Kelley sends her a soft smile, giving her hands a squeeze. "We've got this, Em."

Emily nods in agreement. She isn't going to let herself fuck this up for Kelley.

They don't linger upstairs for too much longer, agreeing that it's best just to rip the bandaid off and throw themselves into the water. It's sink or swim from this point forward. They might as well get it over with.

When they get downstairs, they find Karen, Erin, and Kelley's sister-in-law, Kristy, in the living room, Dan and Jerry nowhere to be found.

Erin hops up and rushes to meet them in the doorway.

"Ooh, Kel, she's pretty!"

Both Kelley and Emily blush.

"Thank you?" Emily says, unsure if she or Kelley should be replying to that.

"I'm Erin," She pulls Emily into a hug. "The far more attractive O'Hara sister."

Kelley swats at Erin, glaring at a laughing Emily. "Not true!"

"Okay, maybe I'm only a little more attractive, since we do look so similar," Erin relents.

Kelley rolls her eyes. "Emily thinks I'm more attractive, right, Em?"

Emily gulps, all eyes on her. "Of course, Kel. You're the prettiest woman I've ever met."

Kelley snakes an arm around Emily's waist, sticking her tongue out at Erin, who rolls her eyes.

"It's okay, Emily. I know you only said that because you're dating her. We all know the truth. I'm better in every way." Erin smirks at Kelley.

"Even soccer?" Kelley challenges with a raised eyebrow, lowering her voice for the next sentence. "I can think of a couple other things that I'm _definitely_  more skilled at, too. I've had lots more practice than you."

Emily and Erin both blush, knowing exactly what Kelley is insinuating.

Kelley smirks, victorious. "Now, are you gonna let us sit, or are we all gonna stand here all day?"

Erin steps back, and allows the duo to enter the living room.

Kelley tugs Emily over to the loveseat, plopping down and dragging Emily down with her with the arm that's still wrapped around her.

That backfires a little when Emily lands half on top of her and knocks the breath out of her lungs.

"Smooth," Erin snickers, rejoining her mother and sister-in-law on the couch.

Kelley scoffs. "I am, thanks."

Emily reajusts so she's only leaning against Kelley's side. She ignores the burning warmth she feels everywhere Kelley's body is thouching hers.

"So, Emily," Karen draws their attention. "Kelley tells us you're from Georgia, too?"

"Yeah, about an hour north of here. Born and raised in Marietta," Emily nods.

"Well that's certainly convenient," Erin says. "Kel usally has a thing for girls from the west coast. Likes to keep them as far away from us as possible."

Kelley rolls her eyes. "That's not even true."

"Want me to list them?" Erin challenges.

Kelley rapidly shakes her head. "No need."

"Mmhmm, that's what I thought."

Emily is curious now. She has no idea how many women Kelley has been with. Probably a lot.

Not in a slutty way, just way more than Emily, though that's obviously not hard, considering Emily is straight (mostly?) and Kelley has known she likes girls for a very long time.

Although, to be fair, Emily hasn't been with a lot of guys, either, so she's kind of inexperiened as a whole, not just with women.

She grew up as a good Christian girl. A real Southern Belle.

Her first and only boyfriend during high school had asked her father if he could court her. And he did; after six months the most they had done was hold hands. They dated for three years and looking back, he was probably the most boring person Emily has ever met. He was a mama's boy and very respectful and studious and nearly robotic. But at the end of the day, he was still a teenage boy, so halfway through their senior when he suggested maybe they take their relationship to a deeper level, Emily agreed without a second thought. She could hardly stand being such a goody-two-shoes any longer.

Sex with him was probably the most awkward thing Emily has ever done, but she felt a little bit rebellious afterward, knowing their parents would strongly disapprove if they ever found out. So she kept doing it, even if it never quite felt right. She figured that would go away with time.

She wasn't very sad when their four year relationship ended halfway through their freshman year of college, citing distance as an excuse.

Emily decided to go a little wild after she was free. That really only entailed drinking for the first time, knowing she wasn't twenty-one. While tipsy one time, she hooked up with some frat boy who was less gentle than her first boyfriend but still made Emily feel rebellious. All she ever craved was to be free and prove to herself that she wasn't some pathetic country girl.

So she agreed to date a guy from the men's soccer team who seemed like her was nice enough, but not as straight and narrow as she was used to, which was actually a good thing. He didn't wait nearly as long to have sex with her as her first boyfriend had. But she fell in love with him all the same and they dated for about a year and a half until she caught him cheating. That was her first real heartbreak, sending her into a spiral of sad. She didn't feel like she would ever be good enough for anyone.

Until she met this one really pretty girl in her Sociology class that had a nice smile and bright green eyes. She always put her hand on Emily's elbow or bicep or forearm when they would talk and it made Emily's skin tingle. So when the girl kissed her at a bar one night, Emily kissed back. She fumbled through a night with the girl, feeling much more pleasure than she ever had with any of the guys she was with. She chalked it up to the fact that she just liked knowing no one back in Georgia would approve. It happened maybe twice more before Emily decided that it was too rebellious of her and that she really was just a good, straight, Christian girl from Georgia. She was just sad and lonely after her boyfriend cheated on her.

But the next two times she came close to letting a guy have sex with her, she changed her mind and stopped things before it could get that far. She didn't want to feel the weird feeling she got whenever a guy was inside of her. It would never feel as nice as the way that girl's tongue had felt against her.

So yeah, Kelley has definitely probably been with way more women than Emily. But that doesn't matter because Emily is straight. She just needs to find the right guy to be with. It just hasn't happened yet.

"Em?" She snaps out of her daze when Kelley nudges her in the side gently.

"Huh? Oh, sorry."

Kelley tilts her head slightly in question, wondering if Emily is okay.

Emily just sends her a small smile.

Luckily, it doesn't seem like anyone else noticed that she zoned out a bit.

Kelley pulled Emily a little tighter against her, pressing a kiss to her hairline.

It was probably the most intimate gesture she had ever done toward Emily, but the other woman seemed suddenly sad, and she couldn't help herself. She just wanted to provide a little comfort.

Emily nearly sighed in contentment.

She caught Erin's eye from across the room, and offered a smile.

Erin observed her for a moment with a serious expression, before cracking a smile. She returned to her conversation with Karen.

Emily leaned deeper into Kelley, resting her head on the other woman's shoulder. She pretended for just a moment that this wasn't all fake. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it was real.

* * *

 Emily is a little overwhelmed at the number of people crammed in the O'Hara household.

She's happy it at least is filled with mostly adults, with only a couple of Kelley's little cousins running around.

Though at one point Emily finds herself playing hide-and-seek with a couple of freckle-faced kids instead of mingling with the rest of the guests.

When she's not doing that, she's glued to Kelley's side.

No one really questions her presence, which is nice. They chat with some of Kelley's high school friends, and it's nice to learn about how Kelley acted before she was a professional soccer player. Apparently she had ditched her perfect little country girl image pretty early on, which isn't really surprising.

Emily isn't aware of how close midnight is to approacing until someone turns the TV on to catch the last ten minutes of the live look at Times Square in New York before the ball drops.

Kelley squeezes her hip, where her hand has been resting most of the night as her arm had barely ever not been looped around Emily.

"Em?"

Emily looks into Kelley's eyes, surprised at the fact that she seems nervous.

"Mmm... yeah?" Emily has had a few drinks throughout the night, so she's just buzzed enough to pretend the warmth inside of her is from the alcohol and not from Kelley's touch.

"When the ball drops, I'm going to kiss you," Kelley tells her. "Okay?"

It takes a moment for Emily to process her words, and when she does, her eyes widen. "Yeah, okay."

She knows it's a bad idea to agree, but what kind of couple doesn't kiss at midnight?

That's what she repeats herself as the countdown begins.

Ten...

Kelley loops her arms around Emily's neck, tugging her closer.

Nine...

Emily's hands find a place to rest on Kelley's waist.

Eight...

Kelley's heart pounds in her chest. She's been waiting for this moment all night.

Seven...

Emily hopes her hands aren't sweating through Kelley's shirt with how nervous she is.

Six...

Kelley takes a shaky breath.

Five...

Emily reminds herself that she's straight and that she isn't going to enjoy this.

Four...

Kelley sends out a quick prayer that this doesn't ruin everything between them.

Three...

Blue eyes meet hazel and the rest of the room melts away.

Two...

One of them leans closer, to rest their foreheads against each other.

One...

Emily closes her eyes.

Zero...

Kelley lurches forward to press her lips against Emily's.

As the rest of the room is cheering and hollering or kissing their significant other, the duo in the corner are sharing a quiet moment that neither of them will forget.

Emily pulls away first, knowing she's enjoying the feeling of Kelley's lips against her more than a good, straight, Christian girl should.

Neither of them leave the embrace for a moment, eyes locked in each other, the commotion around them still being ignored.

"Happy New Year, Em," Kelley says softly.

Emily offers a sad smile. "Happy New Year, Kel."

This changes everything between them even though they both know nothing can change between them.

Maybe "happy" isn't the best way to describe the first few moments of the new year for them.

But they've got 365 more days of the year to make this year their best one yet.

Maybe they'll get to be happy, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> So I have some ideas for sequels set in 2016 & 2017 but I probably should work on my other fics instead. Let me know what you think here or on tumblr (@llostt-in-ttranslationn).


End file.
